


Burton Guster vs. The Robot Menace

by thingswithwings



Category: Psych
Genre: Best Friends, Blood Brothers, Childhood, Chromatic Character, Gen, Robots, Yuletide, challenge:Yuletide 2008, recipient:pocketmouse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-25
Updated: 2008-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-24 02:45:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/258050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thingswithwings/pseuds/thingswithwings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just some little-Gus and little-Shawn sweetness; written for Yuletide madness 2008.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Burton Guster vs. The Robot Menace

Every Wednesday night, Burton pulled the box out from under his bed, opened it, and began sorting carefully through the contents. The box bore some resemblance to an old jewelry box that his sister threw out last Christmas, but was also different from that box in several key ways: first, rather than having a whole bunch of tiny useless compartments inside, it had one big compartment, much better suited to Burton's purposes; second, its original painted floral pattern had been covered over in army-green oil paint from his model kit; and third, it said EVIDENCE on the top in big white letters (the white paint also leftover from his model kit, since they always gave you too much paint).

Inside the EVIDENCE box was all the evidence Burton had collected. There was the photograph of him and Shawn, on Shawn's tenth birthday, where there was some kind of metallic gleam coming from Shawn's head (perhaps, Burton theorized, there had been some damage to his organic skin covering), and there was the strange metal component that Burton had found in Shawn's room (it wasn't stealing if you were collecting evidence), and there was the sample of Shawn's hair that Burton had salvaged from the bathroom garbage, which he was just waiting for an opportunity to analyze at school under the microscope. Beneath these and several other items was a small journal, in which Burton recorded his experiences as the best friend of a cybernetic organism.

He pulled out the journal and began to write. _July 23rd, 1989,_ he began. _Went with Shawn to Hanover Woods. Shawn able to locate perfect wood plank for temporary treehouse: possible infrared vision?_ He paused, not sure if _infrared_ was the word he wanted. He'd have to look it up later in his copy of _Red Phantom vs The Robot Menace_ , which he'd lent to Shawn to see if it would provoke any reaction.

He looked over the old journal entries: _July 4th, 1989: Shawn paid careful attention to fireworks: possible attempt to learn about explosives?_ and _June 15th, 1989: Attempted to analyze Shawn's hair - Mr. Gleeson chased me out of science lab._ and _June 10th, 1989: possible that Mr. Spencer is training Shawn's robot senses - but WHY?_ He flipped back through entires on Shawn's speed in a footrace (roughly matched to Burton's: was he trying to blend in?), on Shawn's ability to find missing army men before they got sucked up in the vacuum and Burton's dad got annoyed, on Shawn's inability to socialize in the manner of an average 12-year-old kid (this last based on an old psychology textbook that he'd found in the basement).

As he pored over his old entries, there was a sudden tap at his window. Burton turned around, panicked, but was too late to prevent Shawn from climbing in his window.

"This is a bad time, Shawn!" he cried, throwing his body down over the evidence to protect it from Shawn's eyes.

"Uh, hi, Gus," Shawn said. "I thought you might wanna come out and play. I brought my new baseball bat." He held it up as proof.

"Is that some kind of threat?" Burton asked, pushing his evidence back under his bed.

Shawn blinked. "No, it's a _bat_. Let's go hit a baseball."

Burton squinted, but then decided that Shawn meant him no harm. This coincided with his working theory that Shawn might have been built to do good. "Okay," he said, and got up.

"What is all that stuff, anyway?" Shawn asked, pushing his toe against the journal that's sticking out from under the bed. "Wait, does that say something about my _hair_?"

"No," Burton said, quickly. Too quickly. Damn.

"It does!" Shawn cried, dropping his bat. "Hey! And that's the piece from my Transformer!" He fell to his kneels and started reaching under the bed for the rest of the stuff. Burton got in his way, trying to push the stuff back under the bed while simultaneously trying to push Shawn away; it was his least successful attempt at multitasking yet.

"I can't believe you stole from me, Gus!" Shawn said, pushing back. Burton pushed again, and then suddenly they were rolling around on the floor, kicking and shoving, with all of Burton's neatly laid out evidence crushed and scattered beneath them.

"I - didn't - steal!" Burton managed, pulling Shawn's hair. "It was evidence!"

Shawn stopped trying to twist Burton's ear and looked at him in surprise. "Evidence? About what?"

Burton sighed; he had been compromised; it was best to just move forward. "Shawn, I know your secret," he said.

"You - what? Of course you do," he said, as being a robot disguised as a twelve year old boy was the most obvious thing in the world for Burton to know. "You know all my secrets," Shawn said. "Like the thing about the yellow paint at the school play, and that time when your Uncle was visiting and left his car door open, and - "

"Not those secrets, Shawn," Burton said. "I know that you're a robot."

Shawn, who had been half-lying on the floor with a hand on Burton's ear, sat up quickly. "What? I am not a robot."

"Are too."

"Am _not_ \- why do you think I'm a robot, anyway?"

Burton paused. Now that he thought about it, he couldn't quite remember how this idea had gotten started. He'd have to check the journal, which was currently somewhere under Shawn's butt.

Rolling his eyes at Burton's hesitation, Shawn said, "This is about those Red Phantom comics, isn't it?"

"Maybe," Burton admitted. "But you have to admit that the evidence is compelling, Shawn."

"Gus, I am not a robot," Shawn said seriously. "Seriously. Here, I'll prove it to you." He pulled out the Swiss Army Knife that his dad had given him last year, fumbled out the knife part, and pricked his index finger. Blood welled up.

"That doesn't prove anything. You could be like Arnold Schwarzenegger in _Terminator_."

Shawn was still for a second, then reached forward and smeared his bloody finger on Burton's cheek. "You'll just have to take my word for it, weirdo."

"Ew," Burton said, wiping at his face. He couldn't help smiling at Shawn a little, though.

"So how do I know _you're_ not a robot?" Shawn asked seriously.

"What? That is a dumb question, Shawn, of course I'm not a robot."

"No, I been reading about it in your Red Phantom comic that you lent me. You could look just like any other kid!"

"I do look just like any other kid."

"That's my point," Shawn said triumphantly.

Burton sighed, and held out his hand. Shawn gave him the Swiss Army knife. Burton cut his finger a little bit, wincing at the pain.

"See," Shawn said, pressing his index finger to Burton's, mingling their blood together. "No robots."

Burton smiled. It had been kind of cool for a while there, having a robot best friend, but this was pretty good too.

  



End file.
